Lemeza Kosugi (ルエミーザ 小杉, ruemiiza kosugi)

The Chosen One: He is ultimately granted permission by the Sages to chant the Mantras and summon the Mother. Up until then, there are a few references to a "chosen one", including one tablet that basically says "if you made it this far, we choose you".

Disappeared Dad: To Lumisa in La-Mulana 2, since he's been in hiding after the events of the first game.

Fedora of Asskicking: Which he apparently wears over the helmet and perpetually has a hold of while falling and sinking. He also has to hold it on during the high-speed Palenque fight.

Hero with Bad Publicity: In La-Mulana 2. Sure, he saved the world from Mother's wrath, but he also destroyed a world heritage site in the process. The public apparently only learned about/believed the latter, so he's been on the run from Interpol.

Spell My Name with an "S"/It Is Pronounced Tro PAY: In Japanese his name is written as ルエミーザ (ruemiiza) while his name is always written in English as Lemeza. Does he use a different name depending on language or is Lemeza meant to be pronounced like "ruemiiza?"

Superior Successor: Fits Lemeza in every single way, if you consider the story behind the ruins, his role of chasing his father's work and defeating gods and goddesses who could have remained for eternity and used to rule over everyone.

Wholesome Crossdresser/Creepy Crossdresser: Up for debate if he's creepy about it or not. Mulbruk and Xelpud are significantly weirded out, but Lemeza himself has absolutely no problems donning the skimpy swimsuit from Hell Temple and workin' it. All the official art showing him in the thing has him happy as a clam, to boot.

Lumisa Kosugi (ルミッサ 小杉, rumissa kosugi)

The protagonist of La Mulana 2. She is Lemeza's (or Shorn's) possibly illegitimate daughter. With Lemeza vanished, she takes up Elder Xelpud's request to explore Eg-Lana.

Mysterious Past: Was she the daughter of Lemeza's wife before they married? Is she actually an illegitimate child of Shorn? Did Lemeza father her when he was only 15? Nobody knows.

Happily Adopted: Possibly. At any rate, if Lemeza isn't biologically her dad, she seems to think of him as such - she calls him Papa in the April Fools video, and all material that isn't directly referencing Shorn calls Lemeza her father. How happy she actually is with him remains to be seen.

Disappeared Dad: Left Lemeza with his grandfather at a young age so he could search for the ruins.

Dub Name Change: Zig-zagged. The original's fantranslation called him Shorn, the Japanese website for the remake still calls him Shorn but the English remake calls him Shawn, and in La-Mulana 2 he's apparently back to being Shorn again for the English localization.

Aerith and Bob: Shawn has an odd name out, considering all the mythological references and just plain made up names like Xelpud and Lemeza.

Expy: His spectacles, bucket hat (though the remake turns it into a helmet), and iffy relationship with his son clearly mirror Henry Jones, Sr. He also has a touch of Belloq in him, with the whole poaching research thing.

Famous Ancestor: Shorn has a world-renown career as an archaeologist while the first game is Lemeza's first time doing anything that would grant him fame.

Freeze-Frame Bonus: There are a couple of times you can see him leaving the room you're entering.

Hero of Another Story: He spent much of his life trying to find the ruins, and he managed to explore them almost entirely. However, because the story is told from Lemeza's POV we only know tiny portions of his tale.

Miles Gloriosus: According to the remake's manual, as his physical prowess started declining somewhat with age, he developed a history of poaching the results of Lemeza's work to compensate. No surprise when he steals the show at the end, then.

Ninja: Had the same training Lemeza did, and has had longer to perfect it.

The Unchosen One: His final message to you on his computer, which you find at the very heart of the ruins, says that he went through all of the same trials and traps you did and reached La Mulana's heart, but ultimately wasn't able to continue because he wasn't chosen by the four Sages.

Elder Xelpud (ゼルプド長老, zerupudo chourou)

The Elder of the village, and the guy who saves your game and generally chats to you. After the first game, he sells out and turns La-Mulana into a tourist trap.

Badass Grandpa / Hidden Badass: In the remake. Remember that one puzzle where you have to get Shorn's diary, involving that falling pillar? in the original, you use the time lantern. In the remake, you talk to Xelpud, and he literally comes down to that room in the ruins, JUMPS IN ITS FALLING PATH, AND THEN LIFTS IT UP FOR YOU TO GET PAST.

Sdrawkcab Name: "Xelpud" spelled backwards is "Duplex", one of the developers of the original game.

Take That!: Talks smack about the easiness of modern gaming. In the original version, he also likes to take potshots at the Famicom.

Take That Me: In the remake, some of his dialog mentions how modern games give you far too many hints... when his role in the game is to serve as Mr. Exposition and to give you hints via e-mail.

Voice with an Internet Connection: In the remake, he sends e-mails to Lemeza when certain conditions are met, which can be read at any time. Some of these also double as tutorials, such as the one explaining how to use the Grapple Claw.

Mulbruk (ムーブルク, muuburuku)

A girl who lives in the Temple of the Sun. She offers advice on where to go or what to do, but only appears in the remake version. After the events of the first game, she adapts well to modern life and becomes an adventurer with a taste for cheeseburgers and fashion.

Chekhov's Gunman: At the end, instead of escaping the ruins through the Guidance Gate entrance, Lemeza has to go talk to her. They both then run through an alternative exit.

Facial Markings: In official artwork she has some kind of mark on her forehead. It's never explained just what it means.

Fanservice: Beating the game with the Treasure That Must Not Be Seen on will let you see her sprite donning it as well during the staff roll. One of the Steam Trading Cards you can get shows her wearing it.◊ Along with Lemeza and Shawn, and a naked Xelpud.

Ba

Shown Their Work: In Egyptian belief, the soul was split into five parts. Ba is one of the parts, the part that defines individuality and personality. This part of the soul was usually represented by a human-headed bird.

Centimani

Meaningful Name: Centimani is a Latinised version of Hecatonchires "The Hundred Handed Ones". The Hecatonchires were three giants in Greek mythology, who helped overthrow the titans. It's said they each had 100 hands and 50 heads.

Not Quite Dead: In the original, if you stick around in the room after killing it, it'll come back to life and start attacking again. You'll want to kill it twice and check the skull if you want the Gradius 2 Beta ROM.

Pazuzu

Fireballs: Shoots standard ones in the original. In the remake, he heats up boulders until they're flaming balls of molten rocks, then throws it at Lemeza.

Shown Their Work: Pazuzu is the Assyrian and Babylonian mythological king of demons, the bearer of storms and drought. He's often depicted as having a man's body, a lion's/dog's head, four wings, eagle talons and a scorpion's tail.

Warm-Up Boss: Especially in the original, where a good shuriken spam was his downfall. He's only marginally tougher in the remake. Considering he's usually the first boss a player fights, it's almost like NIGORO wants to lull the player into a false sense of security...

Sakit (サキト, sakito)

A Giant who wished for The Mother not to return to the sky. He is the boss of the Mausoleum of the Giants.

Collapsing Ceiling Boss: Everytime he takes a step or fires his fist into the ground, rubble falls from the ceiling.

Golem: All the Giants are preserved as huge stone statues. Most of them can move depending on what the time of day is (it's a puzzle, you hit three stone lanterns to change the insignias so they're all either star, sun or moon). Sakit can only be fought when the Moon is showing, unless you sequence break so much that you get the double jump before fighting him.

No-Sell: In the original version, his giant stone body is flat out immune to all subweapons, forcing you to close to dangerously close range in order to attack him. In the remake, he's immune to most subweapons until his mask breaks halfway through the battle.

Regime Change: "Sakit took power into his hand," both figuratively and literally.

Super Drowning Skills: In the original, Lemeza takes damage from the water during the Bahamut fight whether he has the Scalesphere or not.

Viy (ヴィー, vii)

A demon so massive that it needs smaller demons to open its eyelid. It is the boss of the Inferno Cavern.

Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The manual has a picture of what Viy actually looks like. All that is seen in-game is the area around its eye. Said part fills almost the entire horizontal area of the screen.

Bad Boss: In the remake, after the pair of imps have his eye held completely open, Viy will either thrust his eyeball upward, knocking the imps away in the process (often right into you), or disintegrate them with his Wave Motion Eye Laser.

Eye Scream: You hurt it by attacking its giant eye. And it can attack by everting its eye, trying to stab you with it.

Palenque (パレンケ, parenke)

Bullet Hell: Actually fires a lot of bullets even in the original game. It gets even worse in the remake.

Difficulty by Region: Sort of. In the Wiiware remake, it was possible to fly right up in his face and kill him with only a few hits of the flail whip, as collision damage with Palenque did surprisingly little damage. In the PC version of the remake, however, Palenque has a fast life draining ability similar to Viy if you touch him. While this was mostly done to discourage cheap victories, it also makes his battering ram attack do a seriously large amount of damage.

Kill It with Water: In the remake, she can summon a huge tidal wave that smashes on the arena, dealing massive damage to Lemeza unless he takes cover under a platform. If she retreats to the background, take cover.

Slasher Smile: Does this in both versions of the game. As you do damage to her, her facial expression twists into a horrific grin.

Snake People: Much more prominent in the original version, but she clearly has a serpentine lower half.

Unmarked Spoilers for La-Mulana

The Mother (聖母, seibo)/Mother's Soul (聖母の魂, seibo no tamashii)

She's the creator of all sapient Life, who is unable to get back to the sky. Unfortunately, it's a genuinely impossible task, and she's utterly unable to acknowledge that possibility. The entire plot of the game is to put her out of her misery.

Mercy Kill: Because she can't be returned to the heavens as per her wish, the only other option is to forcibly put her to rest.

Mother of a Thousand Young: She personally created nearly everything you run into, and it seems like if humans imagined it at all—not merely myth and folklore, but as Viy, the Snouters, and Backbeard attest, even recent literature and pop entertainment— there's some sort of template within her that the idea ultimately emanated from.

One Bad Mother: A powerful creator goddess who has the nasty tendency to off any of her offspring-races that fail to return her to the sky. The name fits.

One-Winged Angel: Her soul has four forms and her head can be counted as a fifth.

Resurrective Immortality: The Mother is immediately reborn if she dies, so the player must give her soul a physical form and kill that.

You Have Failed Me: Constantly happens whenever she comes to the conclusion that the current sapient race is unwilling and/or unable to send her back. It's implied that she does this in part because otherwise there won't be room and/or materials for the new attempt at creating rescuers. One wonders what would happen if she were somehow convinced that she can't get back in the first place...

The Boss (ザ・ボス, za bosu)

He is found in the Hell Temple, a big blue blob with eyes closed and a tongue sticking out that guards the last rooms.

Ascended Extra: In the WiiWare version The Boss uses an unused music that was never used in the original game, Good Morning Mom.

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